F 606 

• R42 1867. 

Copy l 

'HE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN 



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ADDRESS OF THE REPUBLICAN STATE CENTRAL COMMMIT.TEE TO THE 
REPUBLICANS OF MINNESOTA. 

rooms of the 

Republican State Central Committee, 
St. Paul, Minn., Oct. 12, 1867. 

TO THE REPUBLICANS OF MINNESOTA : 

There has never been a time in the history of our party when the interests 
of the government, the national honor and the public safety have so im- 
peratively demanded the entire energies of every member of the party. 
In the light of recent events, the campaign in Minnesota becomes of 
national importance. 

The late elections in Ohio and Pennsylvania repeat the lessons taught 
us in 1862. In that year the loyal North was astounded by Democratic 
victories in Ohio, New York, Indiana and Pennsylvania, as unexpected as 
they were disastrous. 

In that year the Democracy carried New York by a majority of 10,752 : 
Pennsylvania by a majority of 3,524; Ohio by a majority of 5,577, and 
Indiana by a majority of 9,643. Those reverses were not occasioned by 
Democratic gains, but by the simple fact that Republicans by scores of 
thousands neglected to go to the polls and vote, and ia Pennsylvania by the 
additional fact that the Democratic Supreme Court of that State disfran- 
chised the defenders of the country in the field, by declaring unconstitu- 
tional the law under which they voted. 

The following table, compiled from official sources, shows conclusively 
that the Republican party owed its defeat in that year purely to itself: 



NEW-YORK. 


1860, 
1862, 

Falling off in vote, 

VIA. 1860, 
1862, 

Falling off in vote, 

1860, 
1862, 

Falling off in vote, 

1860, 
1862, 

Falling off in vote, 


Republican. 
362,646 
295,897 


Opposition. 
312,570 
307,649 

5,921 

208,412 
219,140 

9,272 Dem. 

133,110 
128,100 


Rep. Maj. 
50,136 

59,618 

gain. 
5,923 

20,779 


Dem. Maj. 
10.752 


PENNSYLVA' 


66,749 

268,030 
215,61Q 


3,524 


INDIANA. 


52,414 

139,033 
118,517 

20,516 

231,610 
178,755 


fl.643 


OHIO. 

« 


4,9.50 

211.831 
184,332 

27,499 


5,577 




52,855 





Two facts are demonstrated by this table : — 1st. That in none of these 
States was there any gain by the Democracy over their vote in 1860, 
excepting in Pennsylvania, where the gain is only equal, to less than one- 



fiftk of the Republican majority in 1860. 2nd. That all those elections 
were demonstrably lost by neglect of Republicans to perform the first of 
all the duties of a citizen. In New York in 1862 the Democracy polled 
their full vote of 1860 within six thousand, while sixty-six thousand Re- 
publicans in that State who voted in 1860 did not vote in 1862. In Penn- 
sylvania, where the Democracy made their only positive gain, they polled 
in 1862 about ten thousand more votes thau they did in 1860, while more 
than fifty-two thousand Republican votes were lost to the party through 
its own supineness and the decision of a Copperhead Court. Similar re- 
marks would be true of Indiana and Ohio, as an inspection of the table 
will show. 

The Republicans of Ohio and Pennsylvania have failed to profit by the 
experience of that year when, with superior forces, we suffered two 
defeats — one on the Chickahominy and the other at the polls. Our reverses 
then on the battle field and at the ballot box, resulted from the apathetic 
sense of security arising from superior strength. 

The inadequate victory which the party has just gained in Ohio, 
has been won in spite of the defiiult of scores of thousands of Re- 
publicans who thought the election would result favorably without 
their vote, and who consequently never went to the polls. Though we 
have elected a Republican Governor, it is more than probable that the 
Democracy have been permitted to obtain a majority in the Legislature of 
three or four upon joint ballot. The election of Vallandigham to the 
United States Senate by this Democratic Legislature, of the really Repub- 
lican State of Ohio, is a predestinated fact. Let it never be said that 
Minnesota, with the redoubled experience of her sister States, has made 
a similar record. 

We ask Republicans to give their attention to the following considerations : 

A return of the Democratic party to power, is a virtual overthrow of 
every Republican principle adopted by the party since 1862. 

It means the destruction of the national credit. The Democracy of Ohio 
have, throughout the canvass just closed, advocated the payment of the 
national debt by compelling the holders of our bonds to take therefor green- 
backs to the amount of $2,500,000,000, and the Democratic speakers in 
Minnesota repeat the same arguments. The consequences of an adoption 
of this policy would be most disastrous. Every five cent scrip would 
shrink in a moment to the value of less than one cent. Every pension 
of eight dollars per month which the government pays to the widows and 
orphans of those " who died that the nation might live," would become 
worth to them less than one dollar a month. Every little hoard of savings 
would become as.valueless as if fire had consumed it. The measure would 
strike at the substance of the poor— and at the poor alone. Those con- 
trolling large means, taking the alarm, would hastily convert them into the 
necessaries of life — food and clothing — and hold at their mercy those whose 
surplus would be soon exhausted. Prices are high now, gold is at* a 
premium because our currency is of too great volume. For the same reason 
prices in the South became so great during the war that the poor could not 
subsist. Such is the inevitable result of an expansion of the currency 
beyond the necessities of trade. We experienced it once, and only escaped 
it because we funded in these securities that very surplus which the Demo- 



eratic party now proposes to create. The South experienced it to the 
bitter end, and did not escape its evils because their Democratic statesmen 
did not fund this surplus. The policy would leave the North in the midst 
of profound peace precisely where we found the South at the close of the 
war. Hundreds of millions of dollars in these bonds are held in Europe. 
Do the Democracy expect to compel these holders to exchange their 
bonds, containing a definite promise to pay at some time, for a worthless 
currency never payable so far as its terms are concerned ? Or do they 
mean to invite a foreign war on the result of repudiation ! Again, the 
Pacific Railroad, the crowning physical achievement of man in any age, 
depends for its construction upon United States bonds issued to its 
corporaters for every mile of the road built. Yet the Democracy strike 
a fatal blow at this enterprise, whose successful development will within 
twenty years so increase the resources of the nation as to alleviate by 
one half the burden of taxation which the present wealth of the country 
endures and prospers under at the same time. 

The Democracy of Minnesota declare themselves in their platform ' ' as 
opposed to the so-called reconstruction measures of the Thirty-Ninth and 
Fortieth Congresses." They are undoubtedly opposed to them all ; and 
yet among those measures of reconstruction is the amendment proposed 
to the Constitution of the United States, that no person who, having taken 
an oath of office to support the Constitution of the United States, and 
afterwards engaged in rebellion, shall hold office. Against this amend- 
ment the Democracy of Minnesota have recorded themselves. 

Another amendment proposed by the Thirty-Ninth and Fortieth Con- 
gresses as a condition of reconstruction, is that one declaring that the 
validity of the public debt, including debts incurred for payment of pen- 
sions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection and rebellion, 
shall not be questioned ; 'and that the United States or any State shall 
not assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection 
or rebellion, or any claim for loss or emancipation of any slave. Yet the 
Democracy of Minnesota are opposed to this "so-called" measure of recon- 
struction ! They propose to submit to the chances of party ascendancy the 
power to repudiate the debt — to repudiate the obligation to pay pensions 
— to allow the Southern interest, should it ever again become dominant, 
to saddle the Confederate war debt upon the United States, and to cap the 
climax of party profligacy, to allow them to add to this enormous mountain 
of obligation the power to pay four thousand millions of dollars, the esti- 
mated value of the former slave property. 

The Democracy of Minnesota, represented on their State ticket by men 
of whom not one ever drew a sword or levelled a musket against the 
rebellion, declare themselves in their platform as opposed to universal 
suffrage. The Republican party of this State claims that any man, white 
or black, who was called upon to fight for the preservation of his country 
derives from that very facj, the right to cast his vote upon questions where 
the interests of all citizens are identical. We claim that no man can be 
protected by the ballot of any person save himself. We are opposed to 
those invidious class distinctions which have been the destruction of all 
free governments. Such a distinction, pushed to its consequences, was 
the occasion of the rebellion. Such a distinction retained will be fruitful 




016 094 888 7 



,L2SfL.°f ...CONGRESS 

of catastrophes more dangerous than that which we s 

We believe that there is a duty as binding upon peop 

to do justice : that a nation who can do justice and 

pay a penalty proportionate to the injustice done, and 

its denial will be fruitful of years of retribution. We recognize in our 

own national experience that every right denied lessens immeasurably the 

value of such rights as are conferred ; that rights are only secure when 

completely possessed in all respects ; and that any denial to one class of 

citizens will, if persisted in, destroy those rights which are held by the 

favored citizen to the exclusion of his fellow. 

Are the people of Minnesota prepared to look with complacency at the 
spectacle of Vallandigham taking a seat in the Senate of the United 
States, as the successor of Benjamin Wade? or to see sent from Minnesota 
to the United States Senate a Democrat to make the triumph of that 
expatriated traitor more impressive ? Have we so soon forgotten the fact 
that Vallandigham, in whom Democracy triumphs, in 1863 advised the 
Confederate leaders at Richmond to persevere another year, promising 
them that defeat to the Union armies and prolongation of the war would 
create such despondency at the North that the Democracy would, in his 
language, "sweep the Radicals from power?" 

Shall we be accessary by inaction to the plot to make Horatio Seymour 
the next president of the United States ? — the man who was the master 
spirit of the Convention which declared the war a failure — whose election 
ias Governor of New York in 1862 we felt to be more disastrous than would 
have been twenty defeats upon the battle-field- — who endeavered to stop 
the draft in the Democratic city of New York, to enable him to engage in 
an endless negotiation about its quota — who found "his friends" among 
that mob in that city, which massacred Union soldiers in the discharge of 
their duty, and peaceful citizens in their homes — who combines in his 
person every sentiment, purpose and policy which made the Democratic 
party the coadjutors of the South, before, during and since the war. 

Congress, in the firm assurance of the support of the Republican party, 
has prescribed a policy of reconstruction believed by all Republicans to 
be the only efficacious plan yet proposed. Every Democratic advantage 
permitted by inaction, impedes the work which must be fully done before 
the country can be made secure. There is now as much necessity for 
promptitute, vigilance and work as there was in 1861 when the nation 
was first threatened. It were better to have failed then in our duty than 
to fail now. Now, as then, there is strength enough in the Republican 
party for the salvation of the nation. The scanty results of the last election 
in Ohio and Pennsylvania are, as they were in 1862, the effects of negli- 
gence on the part of individual members of the Republican party. Let 
the men who were once willing to give three years to their country, giye 
but one day to it now. Let every Republican remember those principles 
in which he has believed and enforce them by his vote. We call upon 
every Republican to vote, to see that his neighbor votes, to see that the 
purity of the ballot box is maintained, and to give all his energies that 
those principles may prevail through which the nation has been preserved. 

LEVI NUTTING, 

Chairman Kepublican State Central Committee. 



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